The under-the-radar game review/impressions thread

[Defiant]

(With reviews or impressions of: The Bunker, Beat Cop, After the Empire, Western Press, Space Food Truck, Stories Untold, Frost, Late Shift, Blackwake, Missile Cards and more)

Figured I'd create a thread for reviews of those smaller games, rather than create a new thread for each of them. Feel free to add your own review.

First up, The Bunker.

The Bunker is an FMV adventure game. FMV games have been a rare thing for well over a decade and a half, but there's still the occasional one (Last one I played was Missing an Interactive Thriller, which was a reasonably good episodic puzzle game, but it got cancelled after the first episode). In this one, you play John, the last remaining survivor in a British nuclear bunker thirty years after a nuclear war occurred in the 80s (in fact, he was born in the Bunker, so he's never seen the outside world). But the Bunker has problems, and he has to take action if he's to stay alive. While this occurs, we also read documents, listen to audio recording and have flashbacks that tell more of the story of life in the bunker.

So first off, the story and the acting are solid stuff - this is the kind of quality level stuff, the kind of thing you would expect in a BBC drama (I guess if it were a tv drama, it would probably be more fleshed out, but you wouldn't get to "feel the experience" of playing it). In fact, I'm thinking it was probably heavily influenced by the British TV movie Threads.

The gameplay, on the other hand, is very light. Gameplay consists of point and click and a few quick time events (where you have to click a lot of times on one spot). With the exception of one mildly challenging puzzle, the puzzles are very easy, and almost no one should have a problem with them. (Took me a few minutes to solve the mildly challenging problem, and I could see that giving some people some problems. And I did have difficulty with one of the quick time events, but I got through it on the second attempt).

The game is a little over two hours long. Which is pretty short, although not surprising given that it's an FMV game.

The story is linear, though there are a few things that you can miss or choose that don't really affect the story or game (eg, you might not find all of the documents or collectibles - I missed a few). There are two endings at the end, though, depending on a choice you make.

There is only one save, and there are save spots I think they're at the beginning of every level, which might mean you have to replay 5 minutes worth to get back to where you were. Unfortunately, you can't skip videos you've seen before. Also, if you miss a quick time event, you might have to replay a minute or two to get back to the same spot.

It's currently on sale (it's also available in a couple of bundles), although even at $10, it's a bit expensive for a two hour experience. I got it for ~$9 since I had all the other items in one of the bundles except for this game and soundtrack, and I don't regret it, but I'm a fan of British drama.

The game is also available for consoles.

[Defiant]

Next up: Beat Cop impressions

Beat Cop's a pixel style game that's a take on 80s style cop shows. You play a cop that's been transferred to beat cop while he's under investigation for a crime he didn't commit (not sure why he isn't just suspended, but...)

Your beat is a long block, with maybe a dozen businesses, as well as residencies, alleyways, etc. You've got a number of tasks to do throughout the day. You've got to write tickets (and meet your quota). You've got to respond to reports (chase down robbers, tape off crime scenes and question witnesses until the investigators arrive, etc). You also get to respond to individuals that come up to you for help (or you can choose to ignore them). You can also accept bribes (to look the other way on something, for example) , although there's probably the risk of taking bribe from an undercover police officer or something.

There are four "groups" in this beat that have an opinion on your work - the police, two gangs and the people in general. Additionally, money is tracked in the game - you apparently have to pay alimony, so there's an incentive to take bribes or work extra hard to get bonuses.

Apart from paying your alimony and fulfilling your duties, it looks like you can try to find evidence to exonerate yourself, though I haven't found any evidence yet (only three days in)

The interface is fine (though it took me a second time to understand how to arrest a criminal - you have to be near enough to them that the handcuff over their head turns green, and then you click on the cliffhanger option on the bottom of the screen). However, it looks like savepoints are only at the start of each day, which I find annoying.

[tgb]

Goatee Games is a development house (one guy, actually, I think) trying to shake up the 4X genre. Their first release, The Viceroy, was an interesting idea hampered by it's inscrutability. That was mostly due to opaque systems, a dense, tough to read manual, and horrible tutorial.

Now they're back with After the Empire. While it shares some of the issues of it's older brother, the tutorial is actually helpful this time, there are lots of tool tips and help screens, and the 80 page manual, while loaded with unfamiliar lore and jargon, actually teaches you how to play.

It also helps that it's skews a little more closely to a traditional 4X, even if the mechanics are unlike any other game.

Anyway, it's only $7 on Steam. I've only poked around the tutorials a bit so far, but can see giving it a lot of time once I understand it better.

[Defiant]

Looks good - I'll probably get it, though I'm a little wary of the learning curve.

[tgb]

Looks good - I'll probably get it, though I'm a little wary of the learning curve.

Once you go through the tutorials and read the manual (you don't even have to read it thoroughly - everything is included in the help screens and tooltips) you'll find that the learning curve isn't as bad as it appears.

Despite unfamiliar jargon and lore, you'll be pretty much doing the same things that you do in just about every other 4X.

I guess 3X, really, since there's no exploration. I was able to win my first game (Small map on Easy, but still....) and probably grok about 80% of the systems. I'm going to ramp the difficulty up a bit and try creating a custom faction to see how that goes.

[Defiant]

Quick impressions of Western Press.

Western Press is a typing duel game. Two players (or player vs AI) duel it out in the old west. Each side has to type out (or press the buttons) to the controls in order from top to bottom as quickly as possible. Whoever types the quickest (accounting for penalties for typos) shoots first. Occasionally, people have two lives, so it requires two shots, but that's pretty much it in terms of gameplay. Rounds are very quick. I didn't like the way the letters were presented (I would probably have been able to type more quickly if I could read the word all at once, but given that it's presented vertically from the top to the bottom of the screen it's difficult to read all at once). The game probably works best as a quick local-multiplayer party game.

The game has pixel-graphics with plenty of old western settings and characters, and humorous dialogue from the characters (and the narrator).

[Zenn7]

Looks good - I'll probably get it, though I'm a little wary of the learning curve.

Once you go through the tutorials and read the manual (you don't even have to read it thoroughly - everything is included in the help screens and tooltips) you'll find that the learning curve isn't as bad as it appears.

Despite unfamiliar jargon and lore, you'll be pretty much doing the same things that you do in just about every other 4X.

I guess 3X, really, since there's no exploration. I was able to win my first game (Small map on Easy, but still....) and probably grok about 80% of the systems. I'm going to ramp the difficulty up a bit and try creating a custom faction to see how that goes.

Let us know how this one goes after playing it a little more. This looked kinda interesting (on my watch list for now).

[tgb]

Looks good - I'll probably get it, though I'm a little wary of the learning curve.

Once you go through the tutorials and read the manual (you don't even have to read it thoroughly - everything is included in the help screens and tooltips) you'll find that the learning curve isn't as bad as it appears.

Despite unfamiliar jargon and lore, you'll be pretty much doing the same things that you do in just about every other 4X.

I guess 3X, really, since there's no exploration. I was able to win my first game (Small map on Easy, but still....) and probably grok about 80% of the systems. I'm going to ramp the difficulty up a bit and try creating a custom faction to see how that goes.

Let us know how this one goes after playing it a little more. This looked kinda interesting (on my watch list for now).

It didn't really hold my interest. Once you set up your faction and prioritize how you want your economy running, there isn't a whole lot to do. I got my $7 worth of enjoyment out of it, but it doesn't have legs.

[Defiant]

Next, impressions for Space Food Truck.

Space Food Truck is a cooperative card game that might best be described as FTL meets Dominion (the card game), where you're trying to cook three special dishs and deliver them to three planets. Players control one or more of the four characters on a space ship (Captain, Scientist, Engineer and Chef). Each turn they draw five cards from their own deck, each of which contain a power level, a monetary level and sometimes an action (some cards are also ingredients). They can play their action cards, generally powering them up with the power values of other cards. Then you go to a market where you buy one or more card for your deck (you need to buy at least one card each time - there's a free but very weak leftovers card if you can't afford more expensive ones, or if the market is otherwise sold out). There's also a potential bad event that happens between players turns.

The pilot pilots the ship, powering the FTL drive and sending the ship to the next planet. Once you dock at a new planet, you can add new cards to the market. You always want to keep the market at least somewhat stocked so you don't end up with lots of leftover cards in your hand).

You want your chef to collect the ingredient cards (from the market or collecting them from other players) so that he can cook the recipes. Although in order to play the cook card, the ingredient has to be in the discard pile already (which I've found isn't that easy)

The scientist unlocks cards for other players - each role has a set of 10 potential cards that can be added (one of which is a secret ingredient). As you unlock each card, the power cost of unlocking the next card for that role goes up (although there are other cards that can lower the cost). There's also a way to mutate cards (adding power to it, I think? haven't had the chance to do it yet)

Finally, the engineer fixes things (that usually got damaged during the bad event between turns) - that includes the shields, the doors between rooms, a research track for one of the roles, etc. He can also upgrade the shields or ftl drive (allowing them to be powered up higher).

Cards can also allow players to move between rooms (if the doors aren't broken) and can trade cards with other players in the same room.

Overall, the gameplay seems sound, but from what I've played of it so far, the game is very difficult. Even on the easiest difficulty, I'm still finding it hard. Not sure if it's because you have to add cards to your hand each turn (which can dilute your good cards with crappier cards), or if maybe there's too much damage happening between turns.

[tgb]

I played Space Food Truck a ton when it was first released as Early Access, and really enjoyed my time with it until something newer and shinier came along. Like you, I was never very successful.

[Defiant]

Well, my second game of it I did better (I almost made it to the point of completing my second delivery), though it's still very, very difficult. If only there was one level easier than mild, it would probably be a lot more enjoyable.

[Defiant]

Stories Untold Impressions:

This is a series of four old school text adventures - I've played the first of them. And by old school, I mean really old - it's got a 2-3 word parser, something that would probably have been considered weak even by the mid-80s. This is clearly designed with nostalgia in mind for those games. Additionally, a lot of commands or objects aren't recognized, though I only had one point where I had a guess-the-verb style problem (which took me about a couple of minutes to figure out). Additionally, the game plays slow, as if it were actually running on an old computer- you've got to wait for the computer responses to finish appearing on the screen before you can type the next command (The game takes place with you at your 80s computer with the text adventure playing on the monitor of that computer.). So it's kind of annoying to play through.

On the other hand, it does kind of work. It took about 30 minutes to play through, which was just enough time to get a taste at what gaming was like back in those days and enjoy a short twilight-zoney game without getting too annoyed at playing the game. Additionally, what really does work is the sound effects, music and other effects in the game. They're very well designed to add to the ominous feeling to the game.

Based on what I've played so far, I'd recommend waiting for the game to drop to $5 or less, unless you're really nostalgic for old style gaming.

[tgb]

Frost is an interesting little solitaire deck builder/survival game that actually came out last Summer.

The goal is to make it through some icy wilderness to shelter before a massive storm catches up to you. By collecting and playing cards you send members of your party out to scavenge for wood, food, or other survivors, and spend those resources to advance to the next stop along the way. Every turn you fail to move forward the storm counter goes down - when it reaches 0 it's game over, man. Advance and it moves up a step.

Stops also have predators that must be fought off, as well as new cards that can be purchased and occasionally ways to trade one resource for another. The developer has also added in (free) DLC in the form of additional cards and rule variations.

It's on sale at the moment for $5, and well worth it.

[Archinerd]

Frost is an interesting little solitaire deck builder/survival game that actually came out last Summer.

Picked it up on your recommendation and it's prefect type of game for me right now. It reminds me a bit of Reigns but with a bit more depth. One interesting thing I noticed is that cards seem to be added to the deck based off of the cards you play during the game. I can't confirm it for sure but if true, is a nice touch.
Specific example spoilered;

Spoiler:

I used the Cannibalism extensively through one play thru and now one of the new event cards is a band of hungry Cannibals.

I second the recommendation and it's worth the $5, especially if you have some trading card $ sitting in your steam wallet like I did.

[tgb]

I never noticed that about which cards get added after a game, but I'll keep an eye on that.

One thing the game lacks is some kind of score/leader board. So far I beat it once (on Easy, natch) and I got the same reward as the many times I died - kicked back to the main menu.

[Archinerd]

So far I beat it once (on Easy, natch) and I got the same reward as the many times I died - kicked back to the main menu.

Yeah, that could certainly be better.
Another thing I couldn't figure out (and eventually looked up) was how to use some of the alternate activation actions on some of the ideas. I believe it's the Cleaver that allows you a 25% to get wood and discard (but keep) the card. OR if you remove the card from your deck you can use it to fight wolves OR get 2 wood. Turns out, it matters where you actually click on the card. If you want the upper half effect, click the upper half of the card and vice versa. According to the internet, I wasn't the only one who had trouble figuring that out.

[tgb]

So far I beat it once (on Easy, natch) and I got the same reward as the many times I died - kicked back to the main menu.

Yeah, that could certainly be better.
Another thing I couldn't figure out (and eventually looked up) was how to use some of the alternate activation actions on some of the ideas. I believe it's the Cleaver that allows you a 25% to get wood and discard (but keep) the card. OR if you remove the card from your deck you can use it to fight wolves OR get 2 wood. Turns out, it matters where you actually click on the card. If you want the upper half effect, click the upper half of the card and vice versa. According to the internet, I wasn't the only one who had trouble figuring that out.

I kind of guessed at that and eventually figured it out by trial and error.

[Defiant]

I tried the demo and enjoyed it (though I am a little confused by some of it - like if the extra card you might get from playing certain cards or sending out people comes from your deck or is a new card, etc). I've been hankering for a good deck builder after enjoying Space Food Truck but finding it too difficult, and I tried out Star Realms (I had a key from a humble bundle) but it didn't do it for me.

[Defiant]

Late Shift:

This is another FMV game, this one with a heist thriller storyline. The acting was solid, the story was good and the video quality looked great and smooth. It took about 75 minutes to go through a play-through. I didn't get a "good" ending, but it was still satisfying.

This one offers a choose-your-own-adventure style gameplay, with choices popping up on average every minute or so (apparently, there are over 180 choices within the game, but I only faced about a third of that). The same general storyline happens regardless, but some alterations do appear to happen - looking at the trailer, I saw a number of differences (there was a character in the trailer that I never encountered, the trailer has someone else being held at gunpoint whereas I was the one held at gunpoint in my playthrough, etc). And some of the decisions you make earlier in the game do affect things later in the game.

I would guess there's enough to replay it a 2-3 times (maybe 7 if you want to get all the different endings) - though whats annoying is that there's no way to skip or save separate games, so if you wanted to take alternate paths, you would have to rewatch scenes that you've seen before, rather than skip them, which is probably the main negative I have.

Overall, if you like FMV games (or CYOA style games) this is definitely worth a look.

[Defiant]

Blackwake: (played for about an hour and a half)

This is an online multiplayer team based pirate ship naval combat game that's in early access.

You have two sides, the Pirates and the Navy. Each side has an equal number of ships - there are at least two sizes of ships, a one level ship, and a two level ship with an above deck and below deck. The crew of each ship is divided between a single captain (voted on at the start of the game, but apparently, you can have a mutiny to replace him), and everyone else.

The captain navigates the ship and gives orders to everyone else (along the lines of Artemis: Starship Simulator, for example) - I haven't played that role yet. The rest of the crew handles all the task, so you can interchange between readying and firing weapons, and damage control, but you'll want to make sure that all the tasks that need to be done get done.

The tasks that can be done during ship combat include:
- Readying the cannons (several steps that include adding the gunpowder, choosing and adding the ammunition type, etc)
- Firing the cannons (waiting for the captain to align the ship)
- There are also smaller cannons that are designed to damage sails or hurt enemy players. They're much simpler and quicker to reload.
- You can also replace the supplies by each cannon from the supply closet (once that gets empty, I think the ships have to head to port to resupply)

The ship can also be damaged, from cannons or other ships ramming into you. You can repair them by:
- fixing holes/sails/etc on the ship
- manning a pump to pump out the water
- putting out fires

Also, if you ram or grapple on to an enemy ship (or the ship is low enough in the water) you can board her. Though the melee system is pretty clunky (Also, it takes like 20 seconds to reload your gun. Which explains why we don't see many early-gun FPS games), but hey, it's early access.

The graphics are serviceable - not bad, but they have fairly high specs compared to other better looking games with lower specs (I was at the low end of the specs, though, with my settings down low). The sound is fine, though the voice acting on the Navy side is hilariously over the top.

The mode I was in gave each team a number of respawns (both for players and the ship), and the team that used up theirs first lost. There's also a capture the flag style mode as well, but I didn't play it.

[tgb]

It seems that Frost and Missile Command fell in love, married, and had a baby. And they named that baby Missile Cards.

Don't be put off by the Vic-20 quality graphics. There's a lot of surprising depth to this game. I still haven't been able to win on the second base.

[Freyland]

Don't be put off by the Vic-20 quality graphics. There's a lot of surprising depth to this game. I still haven't been able to win on the second base.

Leave your personal life out of this. How's the game?

[tgb]

Wingamestore is having a Spring sale, and I picked up Bounty Train for 6 Quatloos.

I've only played around with it a little bit, but it seems a decent mash up of FTL/trading game/RPG, if a little on the grindy side. It's still in Early Access, but supposedly becomes official in about a month.

[tgb]

One of the best board games of recent years, Terra Mystica is out for Windows and mobile platforms. This is a game that oozes substance as only the Europeans can, with about a dozen asymetrical playable races, as many potential actions you can take in a single turn, and probably half a dozen way to score VP's. I would categorize it as broad rather than deep, because while there are lots of different things you can do in a turn, none of them is particularly complex, so it's surprisingly accessible once you've played a game or two.

It's pretty polished, and given all this stuff you have in front of you generating information in the tabletop version, the developers have done a pretty good job implementing tabs and sliders to make that same information available.


Yikes!

Anyway, the PC version is $10 and (right now) only available though the Microsoft store, although it has been Greenlighted (Greenlit?) so it should be on Steam in the near future.

One caveat: It only ships with Easy AI (Normal and Hard are "coming soon", which I hope means a free patch and not paid DLC), and it's a pushover. The only reason to play single player at the moment is to try out a new faction. Fortunately multi-player is async and cross-platform, and there seems to be a thriving community already. I was able to get into a couple of games almost immediately.

In fact, if any of you mugs pick this up and want to get into a game, I'd be up for it.

[Defiant]

I'll wait until it's available on Steam, but neat, and just in time for International Tabletop Day. I'll make do with getting some DLC for tabletop simulator while it's on sale, until then.

[Daehawk]

I wish my Twitch had not messed up the other day. Wil Wheaton was on and telling us about some new game or some new game related thing he was going to do . But Twitch would not cooperate and I got no info from him.

[Defiant]

50 years - This is a small, short strategy game. Each turn is a year, and the entire game lasts - you guessed it - 50 turns. During a turn you can build different buildings that either supply you with resources (food, gold, wood, faith, etc) or allow you to recruit different unit types (or increase your max) that have different strengths. Peasants mine you gold (or can fight in a pinch). The others are used for fighting. Your units go exploring together, and every so often they run into a battle.

You might make a choice or two at the start of battle (Do you use a units special ability? Do you recruit some of the peasants who wont give you gold this turn?, etc), but once the battle starts it's hands off. You don't want to lose a battle because it will end the game. You'll usually get some amount of faith from the battle, and in the bigger battles, you might get some other reward. I do wish it allowed you to position the units.

And that's pretty much it - a 15-20 minute strategy game. You can approach it different ways (which resource/units do you want to focus on) There's also different civs you can be which give you a different bonus, and there are also other options for the game (that might limit what units you can buy, or make the game be 25 years long, etc) But I wouldn't especially recommend it.

[Defiant]

Bio Inc Redemption

This is an Early Access (so it may change/get stuff added, etc) that may be of interest of people who enjoy Plague Inc. In it you can either choose the life game or the death game - each has a campaign with levels. I've played a few levels of the life campaign. In it, you play a Doctor that's trying to save their patients (although the goals of levels may be different - in one, you might need to diagnose and cure a patient before they die, another might require you to diagnose a whole bunch of ailments, but you dont have to handle the curing).

The game has a screen where you can access different parts of the body - the circulatory system, the skeletal system, the digestive system, etc. A mini-game here is to go to the right system and click different things that might pop up (eg, blood cells) before they disappear, to get bio points. You use biopoints to diagnose and treat patients. Also, that screen will tell you what levels each system is at (from 100% to 0%, at which point I assume they've died)

Aside from that screen, there's a separate location where you can access the diagnosis, the lifestyle and the intensive care screens. This is where you diagnose and treat the patient. You can see what symptoms a person has (and the intensity) and that can help you look at what possible problems can cause those symptoms (maybe they're, say, dizzy cause they have insomnia, or maybe it's from X or maybe from Y or maybe from z). for the various systems (again, circulatory, etc), you can run tests which will let you narrow down what disease a person may have that gives him those symptoms. Once a test tells you that someone does have a disease, you can give them a treatment (sometimes there are multiple treatments, and you might choose one over another cause it uses less biopoints, is more likely to be successful or can treat the problem more quickly). The Lifestyle screen allows you to select lifestyle changes (eg, diet, exercise, etc), that might slow down the drop in % for particular systems. And the intensive care allows you to institute some medical treatment to get a quick significant (eg 20-25%) increase in a system if they've dropped to a certain level (though these are only usable once). Of course, all of these use bio points, so you want to optimize them to keep a patient alive (or whatever the goal requires).

The Death track (based on the video I watched) is the flip side, where you play a disease, and can open up various symptoms that will drop a players symptoms, and you want to do this in such a way that the person takes a while to go to get checked up, and when he does, the doctor has difficulty in diagnosing and treating him.

It's an interesting game, and what I played is fun, though I'm not sure how long the campaign is or how replayable (It might use the same diseases for the same levels, for all I know). But it's still in early access, and it sounds like they'll be adding more content.

[jztemple2]

Bio Inc Redemption

This is on my watch list for when it comes out of Early Access.

[Smoove_B]

It came as part of one of the Humble Bundles I picked up and we don't have a thread here for it - Crashlands. Reminds me a bit of Don't Starve, but not nearly as depressing and with a Sci-Fi theme. It also doesn't feel nearly as hard and I'm not 100% sure that all of the crafting elements are completely necessary. There's a story and quests, but it mainly comes down to go here, do this. It's a bit cheeky with the humor and I somehow lost 4 hours of my life on it today. Would recommend, particularly if you did indeed grab it in a Humble Bundle like I did and it's sitting in your pile of unplayed games or you're wishlisting things for the upcoming STEAM Summer 2017 sale. I'm enjoying it.

[Fretmute]

I picked up Streets of Rogue on a lark this weekend. It's a pre-release alpha at this point, but it's already pretty full featured. The core conceit is that you arrive with your character on procedurally generated maps, and then are given a set of quests to fulfill to open the elevator to the next level. The quests are typically "retrieve an item from here," "neutralize this target," or "push these buttons." In between you and the goals are generally NPCs that don't want you to do those things. From there, everything is up to you. It clearly started as an homage to old school beat 'em ups, but at this point there are a variety of different classes as which you can play that open up more options for accomplishing things. You may be able to cut open a window and get to the safe directly without being seen by guards, or you might be able to bribe an item directly off the target. Random events can also occur on each level, such as being chased by a homicidal robot with a rocket launcher (whom you can trick into shooting your way into your goal rooms). It's certainly not the deepest of games (and, being a rogue-like, I have yet to make it fully past the second set of levels alive), but it's not bad as a quick distraction, and I bet the multiplayer would be pretty fun.

[tgb]

Cold Waters, a "spiritual successor" to the Microprose classic Red Storm Rising was released today. Reception has generally been positive, except from the subsim crowd, who thought there aren't enough rivets to count or something.

Anyhoo, $40 is a bit rich for my blood at the moment, but I've put it on my wishlist and may grab it come payday.

[jztemple2]

Cold Waters, a "spiritual successor" to the Microprose classic Red Storm Rising was released today. Reception has generally been positive, except from the subsim crowd, who thought there aren't enough rivets to count or something.

Anyhoo, $40 is a bit rich for my blood at the moment, but I've put it on my wishlist and may grab it come payday.

It has a 53 page manual which I downloaded. I'll have to check that out.

UPDATE: The Steam reviews are interesting. As someone who played a lot of 688 and Dangerous Waters, as well as Fleet Command, I wouldn't mind a bit simpler approach to the subject. But I agree, $40 for a new release is a bit daunting for me, especially as DiRT 4 releases at the end of this week.

[jztemple2]

Well, regarding Cold Waters, I was looking at a discussion thread about a intro video posted by somebody from Subsim. Several people asked about whether you could just press a button or similar to go to periscope depth, since in the video the Subsim skipper ended up popping to the surface while manually trying to control depth. This is the response from the developer:

Killerfish Games [developer] Jun 4 @ 4:21am
For those asking, you cannot order specific depth or course, all controls are done through WASD.

We found that ordering depth and course was just too "hands off" and we didn't like the impact on the interface of having to have text boxes for inputs. It is purely a design decision as we found direct steering much more engaging, hectic in combat and keeps you watching the action rather then looking at the interface/text boxes.

Well, this is a bit of a turnoff for me. I'm pretending I'm a sub skipper, so I have a helmsman and a planesman to deal with depth and course. I don't want to be jumping from reviewing data in windows to having to turn the rudder or adjust the dive planes. Moving the game to the backburner of my wishlist.

[tgb]

I hadn't seen that. Too arcadish for me as well. Maybe I'll just reinstall SHIV, if it runs in Win 10.

As to the $40 price - boy, have we been spoiled. I remember paying $70 for Strike Commander on release day.

[storz]

Well, regarding Cold Waters, I was looking at a discussion thread about a intro video posted by somebody from Subsim. Several people asked about whether you could just press a button or similar to go to periscope depth, since in the video the Subsim skipper ended up popping to the surface while manually trying to control depth. This is the response from the developer:

Killerfish Games [developer] Jun 4 @ 4:21am
For those asking, you cannot order specific depth or course, all controls are done through WASD.

We found that ordering depth and course was just too "hands off" and we didn't like the impact on the interface of having to have text boxes for inputs. It is purely a design decision as we found direct steering much more engaging, hectic in combat and keeps you watching the action rather then looking at the interface/text boxes.

Well, this is a bit of a turnoff for me. I'm pretending I'm a sub skipper, so I have a helmsman and a planesman to deal with depth and course. I don't want to be jumping from reviewing data in windows to having to turn the rudder or adjust the dive planes. Moving the game to the backburner of my wishlist.

Bought it, and played a little. First impression: There are a lot keyboard command to remember. I was really bad at it, and was sunk within 10 min. of first mission. The graphic is nice, although I like the direct control of the boat, my sub kept surfacing while I want to maintain periscope depth due to I kept forgot there is actually a straight and level key (X by default). Definitely not for the rivet counters, it is basically a remake of Red Storm Rising. Love it. As a simplified sub sim, the action provided by direct control is fine as it is.

[Defiant]

One of the best board games of recent years, Terra Mystica is out for Windows and mobile platforms. This is a game that oozes substance as only the Europeans can, with about a dozen asymetrical playable races, as many potential actions you can take in a single turn, and probably half a dozen way to score VP's. I would categorize it as broad rather than deep, because while there are lots of different things you can do in a turn, none of them is particularly complex, so it's surprisingly accessible once you've played a game or two.

It's pretty polished, and given all this stuff you have in front of you generating information in the tabletop version, the developers have done a pretty good job implementing tabs and sliders to make that same information available.

It's now available on Steam. Now, I've never played the game before, just watched a short tutorial video and then jumped right in, but my impressions...

I'm not quite as wild about the UI. There aren't tool tips that I could see. I accidentally pressed one button and that took me out of the game and complained about the network connection. Turned out later that the game was saved or in the background, but I thought that I had quit it, so I started a new game. I also couldn't figure out some stuff (like where are the goal thing for the current round located - you see it quickly and then it disappears) or how to create a town once you have four buildings and seven power, etc, but I did reasonably well enough, and I'm thinking more of my problems were being a new player than the game itself I probably should have used the in game tutorial, but pfft), and once I completely figure out the interface, things will be fine.

I do like the board game, even though I have yet to have a feel for how it fits compared to other deep board games. There aren't enough deep board games for the computer, IMO (I'd rather play with people, of course, but it's nice to have available when that isn't an option)

[tgb]

Pathfinder Adventures dropped yesterday. Single-player RPG played out as a deck-builder.

You lead a party of up to 6 through different locations. Each character and each location has it's own deck of cards. Very luck-driven since everything is determined by the roll of one or more dice (d4 up to d12), but the dice you roll are determined by the cards you play.

Most playable cards provide several new options so there seems to be a good deal of depth. I'm just coming to terms with some of the rules after playing the tutorials and losing my first campaign (ran out of time).

[LordMortis]

Pathfinder Adventures dropped yesterday. Single-player RPG played out as a deck-builder.

You lead a party of up to 6 through different locations. Each character and each location has it's own deck of cards. Very luck-driven since everything is determined by the roll of one or more dice (d4 up to d12), but the dice you roll are determined by the cards you play.

Most playable cards provide several new options so there seems to be a good deal of depth. I'm just coming to terms with some of the rules after playing the tutorials and losing my first campaign (ran out of time).

I played through the physical game of the first campaign with Remus West and Redrun. About half way through the formula left me not really caring about the game at all and mostly playing was an excuse to get out of the house and pretend that I am social being. I love the idea of solo games but that this really failed for me. With no social aspect it really quickly becomes a complex version of solitaire used to minimize dice luck.

[Defiant]

Impressions of Domina. It's a gladiator management game. You buy (or win) gladiators and you train them to fight in the arena. You can have them train/rest/heal, upgrade their weapon, shields or armor. You can also sell gladiators or free them (if their morale gets too low, they might ask to be freed - you can give them gold or wine to try to make them happier, etc)

There are workers you can hire, like a trainer (that studies a tech tree to give your gladiators abilities), a builder to build things (like a dummy to practice on, a well to give extra access to water, private quarters to help morale, etc)

You've also got a couple of guys above you (a Legate and a magistrate(?)) that you want to keep happy.

There are cards you can get that you can place on a gladiator to give him a bonus when fighting.

You also want to make sure you have enough water and food for your gladiators.

When your gladiators fight, if you have one of the techs, you can control the gladiator (I haven't tried that, because I'm more interested in the management aspect) If your gladiator(s) lost, and you're lucky, you might be able to prevent them from getting killed by mashing your buttons (presumably to simulate the crowd to stop the other guy from killing yours). Winning a fight will give you stuff (like money, food, wine, bonus cards, extra slaves, etc)

The end goal, I think, is to compete in various competitions across the roman empire.

The game is in real time, but the speed cant be changed. I wish it could be, but fortunately the speed is fine.

The game features nice pixel art. The music that plays during the gladiator combats gave it more of a feel of a modern wrestling match, or something, but what made me laugh was the countdowns in roman numerals.

People were apparently annoyed when it first came out because there was no save. That's apparently been added.